Chia Daemon Not Starting

I have been busy recovering from a 5 * 16TB Segate Exos drive crash, and had just updated Chia to v1.2.11. 

After a reboot and an attempt to restart Chia, I was only getting two lines in the log file:

    1: Starting Chia Daemon

    2: Not Implemented

The Wallet remained stuck on a "Connecting" message.

Turns out the Chia Daemon port 55400 had been blocked by the WINNAT service.

It was confirmed by running the following command from an elevated CMD prompt: 

    netsh interface ipv4 show excludedportrange protocol=tcp

The following commands also ran from the same elevated CMD prompt fixed it:

    net stop winnat

    [Now stat Chia]

    net start winnat 

 Thanks to MrGreenApe and his post here:

    https://github.com/Chia-Network/chia-blockchain/issues/2269#issuecomment-838645580

World Community Grid

How to change Microsoft 365 Channel from command line

Good article here on how to change Microsoft 365 without worrying about registry keys.

1. Run a CMD prompt
2. type cd C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun
3. To change to e.g. Current channel do the following
4. Type OfficeC2RClient.exe /changesetting Channel=Current
5. Type OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user

This allowed me to easy change form SemiAnnual to Current channel.

More details here: https://www.fmsinc.com/microsoft-office/change-office-365-channel.html#CommandPrompt

Prepare and create a RAID5 Array of 5 * 4TB Segate Barracuda Disks

 We need to prepare the disks as GPT labeled as they are > 2TB.

For each disk:

• parted -a optimal /dev/sdx
• mklabel gpt
• mkpart primary 0% 100%
• set 1 raid on
• align-check optimal 1
• print
• quit

Create the array:

• mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=raid5 --raid-devices=5 /dev/sdx1 /dev/sdx1 /dev/sdx1 /dev/sdx1 /dev/sdx1 

In all of the above replace /dev/sdx1 with appropriates devices, e.g /dev/sda1 /dev/sda2 etc.

Restrict ASUS laptop charge to 60% in Linux

 Dual booting my ASUS TUF laptop between Windows and Ubuntu 10.

The tools supplied by ASUS with Windows allows the battery charge to be limited to a specified %, the most agressive being 60%, in a bid to preserve battery life. Most laptops that are docked keep the battery at 100% and this kills the battery.

Found a good answer here:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1006778/set-battery-thresholds-on-ubuntu-asus/1230442#1230442

I didn't have enough reputation on the site to leave a like or comment so I'm showing my appreciation here.

I did install tlp using "sudo apt install tlp" but not certain this is required.

After issuing the command "echo 60 | sudo tee /sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/charge_control_end_threshold" and adding the line "@reboot root echo 60 > /sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/charge_control_end_threshold"  to /etc/crontab, the output of "sudo tlp-stat -b" showed the charge at 78% and that the charge now was 0mA. It still shows as charging in the system tray but the % remains unchanging.

The reason I am not certain that TLP is required is because all the kernal modules listed in "tlp-stat -b" are showing as inactive and laptop not supported.

I've just unplogged my laptop and will let the percentage drop to below 60%, reconnect to the mains and see if the charging stops as hoped.

Setup MTA-STS on a GSuite hosted domain

 Excellent step-by-step guide here:

https://kenbonny.net/2020/02/17/set-up-mta-sts-on-a-gsuite-hosted-github-pages/

Many thanks for this great content.

Getting Hyper-V to recognise a physical disk

 I'm running WSL2 and docker on my main machine and have noticed that even though Virtual Box will run, the reliability of the VMs is somewhat sub-par and often involves crashing.

I have taken to installing various Linux distros such as Ubuntu and Parrot on SSD drives in removable USB3 housings.

The main issue with installing Linux from USB boot media is the installation interferes with the Windows UEFI boot loader and can leave Windows unbootable without repairing this. However, if you do fix the Windows boot loader it stop Linux booting. There is probably a way to fix this but I haven't spent the time to do so yet.

My workaround has been to use Hyper-V to install Linux to a the removeable drive, however Hyper-V has an issue seeing the drive to add sometimes.

I found the answer here.

By following the proceedure at the bottom of the post, Hyper-V is able to see and add an SSD drive in a USB3 enclosure. This is limited to disks though, removable devices won't work in my experience.

Thanks to reid1000 you can follow the steps below:

1. In Disk Management, offline the disk
2. Right-click the disk and go to Properties > Policies tab
3. Select the option "Better performance" then click OK. If prompted to restart your computer, click No.
4. Again right-click the disk, go to Properties > Policies tab
5. Select the option "Quick removal (default)" then click OK. If prompted to restart your computer, click No.
6. In Hyper-V Manager, turn off the virtual machine. Then, open its settings and add the physical hard disk to the SCSI Controller.

Microsoft Teams Crashing on Startup\Sign in

Teams developed a crash on startup.
Saw various messages such as an Azure AD sign in failure whch s strange as we don't use Azure AD for local domain authenticaton.
We do use a centrally provided Azure sign in for Office 365 applicatons though.

Finally tracked down this article on the excellent Petri site:
https://www.petri.com/debugging-teams-clients

Gave the option to delete the Teams cache at %AppData%\Microsoft\Teams and this fixed the issue straight away.

The teams client did initially come up wth my AD logon, so perhaps it was trying to authenticate my domain logon against Azure?

Chrome Reaper

Killing the misbehaved in Chrome:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/17/dont_fear_the_chrome_reaper/

Instructions and install files here:
https://github.com/usnistgov/Metrology/tree/master/Reaper

How to hide an entire drive from prying eyes on Windows 10

https://m.windowscentral.com/how-hide-entire-drive-prying-eyes-windows-10https://m.windowscentral.com/how-hide-entire-drive-prying-eyes-windows-10

How to Disable the “Low Disk Space” Warning on Windows 10

Playing with Windows to go and need to disable the constant "Disk is full" messages:
https://www.faqforge.com/windows/windows-10/how-to-disable-the-low-disk-space-warning-on-windows-10/

Boinc on Cosmic 18.10

I'm sufering from OPENCL failures on Ubuntu 18.10 running Boinc so will try these third party drivers:

https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-amd-radeon-drivers-on-ubuntu-18-10-cosmic-cuttlefish-linux

Retroarch does not recognise my controller

Despite have autoconfig setup for input device, the Retroarch snap on Ubuntu 18.04 would not work with my cheap PS3 like controller.

Turns out this is a disconnect between the snap and USB gamepad\joystick support:
https://forums.libretro.com/t/retroarch-does-not-recognize-my-usb-controller-solved/16985

You need to connect the controls to the snap using:

• sudo snap connect retroarch:raw-usb
• sudo snap connect retroarch:joystick

Thanks hunterk!

Windows 10 unable to access SYSVOL and NETLOGON on 2008 R2 Domain Controllers

I found some help here:

• https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1389891-windows-10-and-sysvol-netlogon
• https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/f4d77de7-17df-4463-b751-d1892829e7ab/windows-10-cannot-be-access-sysvol-amp-netlogon-folder-on-the-server-2012-r2?forum=win10itprogeneral

Looks like the SMB security needs to be weakened to allow Windows 10 to access these shares.

Enable the following policy:

• Computer -> Administrative Templates -> Network -> Network Provider -> Hardened UNC Paths

You can either put the following in "Show Values":

• \\*\NETLOGON    RequireMutualAuthentication=0,RequireIntegrity=0,RequirePrivacy=0
• \\*\SYSVOL    RequireMutualAuthentication=0,RequireIntegrity=0,RequirePrivacy=0

Or put an entry for each DC:

• \\DCNAME    RequireMutualAuthentication=0,RequireIntegrity=0,RequirePrivacy=0

Linux Mint 19.1 as guest on Virtualbox 60

Same steps as this post, but no need to add repos:
https://blog.thefoleyhouse.co.uk/2018/10/ubuntu-1804-bionic-beaver-as-virtualbox.html

Essentially:

• sudo apt update
• sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-dkms dkms linux-headers-generic build essential

Geo-location with Wireshark and Geolite2

Turns out Wireshark has built in ASN, City and Country geo-location using Geoip products. You can purchase a (presumably) more accurate version, or use the free version from here:
https://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/geolite2/

More details on the Wireshark Wiki (GeoIP link appears broken):
https://wiki.wireshark.org/HowToUseGeoIP

You can get endpoint statistics:

And in capture:

Move Windows 10 notifications to top of screen

Chrome seems to alert on everything it has now and the notifications\toasts were covering access to items in the system tray that I sometimes needed to exit on login to Windows.

Creating the following registry with a value of 0 will move the toasts to the top of the screen instead:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
    DWORD DisplayToastAtBottom 0x000000000 (0)

Thanks to Winaero:
https://winaero.com/blog/move-notification-toasts-to-top-or-bottom-of-the-screen-in-windows-10/

Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver ntp inactive dead

Having installed ntp services on Ubuntu 18.04, we had to manually start manually on any reboot  using:

               sudo service start ntp

It turns out that in Ubuntu 18.04, systemd has an in-built timesync service that fires on boot called systemd-timesyncd. I believe this service was clashing with ntp and causing ntp to fail to start.

I’ve carried out the following to disable systemd-timesyncd on all three time servers, and to replace it with ntp:

sudo systemctl stop systemd-timesyncd

sudo systemctl disable systemd-timesyncd

sudo systemctl status systemd-timesyncd

sudo systemctl enable ntp

suso systemctl start ntp

sudo systemctl status ntp

All timeservers now appear to start ntp correctly.

Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver as Virtualbox Guest

Virtualbox guest utilities are available in the 'Multiverse' repo.
Testing on server gives the following in /etc/apt/sources.list after initial install:

• deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic main
• deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security main
• deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates main

You may be using a different ftp/http location, but just adding 'multiverse' to each line should achieve the same result. I ended up with:

• deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic main multiverse
• deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security main multiverse
• deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates main multiverse

I then ran the following commands to update and install the required modules:

• sudo apt update
• sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-dkms dkms linux-headers-generic build essential

Unable to run Etherape on Ubuntu 18.04

Etherape would not start as a root or non-root user on Ubuntu 18.04 with the error message:

GLib-GObject-WARNING **: invalid cast from ‘GtkLabel’ to ‘GnomeCanvas’

I found the answer as to why on the Parrot security forums:
https://community.parrotsec.org/t/etherape-not-working-since-last-update/813/5
This missing library was added with the command:

sudo apt-get install libgnomeui-0